This article is from the magazine Les Dossiers de Sciences et Avenir ndeg220 dated January/March 2025.
Herpes encephalitis is a rare and severe disease, "a very rare complication of infection with the virus Herpes Simplex HSV-1, usually harmless, which affects 80% of the population », says Laurent Abel, co-director of the Human Genetics of Infectious Diseases laboratory at the Imagine Institute in Paris. This HSV-1 virus, which billions of humans often carry without knowing it, causes a fatal disease in a few individuals… Why?